Breathless
by Rat-chan
Summary: Watson loses his shirt in a fight. Holmes has trouble catching his breath. Rating for sensual content. Watson/Holmes pairing.


This was written months ago in response to a prompt for something sexy involving suspenders.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own there characters. I do not make money from this work.

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><p>With a final, calculated kick to his opponent's temple, Holmes rendered the last of their assailants unconscious for the next six hours (and dazed for twice as many more when he awakened). He drew a deep breath, trying to catch his wind and for the moment grateful that they were out of London and its harsh, sooty air.<p>

"You all right there, Holmes?" Watson's voice, coming from the opposite verge of the muddy road that had been their battlefield, betrayed an equal breathlessness.

"Perfectly so, Doctor," the detective replied as he raised his eyes to meet worried blue ones. "Far better than... our erstwhile... attackers..." Holmes found his concentration on his own words (and on nearly all else) slipping as his gaze drifted downward. "I say, Watson. You seem to have lost your shirt. Quite literally this time." The sight before him impeded his efforts to catch his breath, but Holmes was glad of the respiratory difficulty – it was most convenient in masking the warmer tone that mingled with the amusement in his voice. Further misdirection, however, failed him as his eyes traced and retraced the sight before him.

Watson leaned on his cane, tattered shirt revealing muscles tensed to hold his weight. Scars stood out pale on skin flushed from exertion and glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration. Further sweat caught in small beads between the hairs of his moustache refracted the slanting afternoon sunlight into a dozen tiny, dazzling rainbows.

It was not these sights that held Holmes pruriently transfixed, though. It was the dark, parallel lines of Watson's suspenders moving against his exposed flesh as he continued his deep yet rapid respiration. Again and again the detective found his eyes drawn along those two lengths of fabric... the peep of a scar from underneath them at a shoulder... their strain at collarbones and heaving pectorals... their brush over a nipple as the doctor tried to roll the tension out of a shoulder... their framing of abdominals still held tense to deflect blows... and their paired junction with trousers pulled low from the fight to reveal the tapering of those muscles toward the groin.

"It's a good thing you managed to keep your braces, Watson," he said as drily as he was able, lifting his gaze with almost more effort than the fight had taken, "else your trousers might have gone the way of your shirt." Holmes knew he'd failed to keep his growing arousal out of his voice when Watson's breath (and his return gaze) sharpened.

"You weren't quite as successful with yours, old cock." Steadied breathing became erratic once more at the matching lust and amusement in the other man's suggestive intonation of the pet name. Holmes' eyes were again irresistibly drawn downward to watch the subtle slide of those suspenders across Watson's lean but well-shaped torso as the other man walked across the road toward him. "Good thing you only half lost them – they're mine."

"Ours—" The reply was swallowed in a gasp as Watson reached around Holmes to grasp the loose brace before drawing it slowly over the darker man's shoulder and back in place, the backs of his fingers drawing a long stripe of heat and sensation through Holmes' sweat-dampened shirt. The sharp intake of breath was repeated when those warm fingers slid into the waistband of his trousers to fasten the end of the suspender in place.

The shaky exhalation of that breath slowed in Holmes' awareness as his mind, still honed with the adrenalin of the fight, swiftly played out a scenario of the next few moments. _Easy slide of fingers down sweat-slicked abdomen into waistband of Watson's trousers... Two flicks of thumb and forefingers to unfasten brace... Trousers now drooping low enough to expose hardening bulge in undergarments... Teasing brush of same digits against that bulge... Responding shift in Watson's grip on brace, drawing bodies together... Slow grind of arousal against arousal eliciting low grunt... Hands locked around fabric as teeth and lips clash together... Complete arousal in 28 seconds... Completion in..._

Holmes chose to leave off calculation there and move into action. He was again distantly glad to be out of London (and away from its crowds) as his hand moved to carry out the first step of his maneuver...

**SPLASH! CATHUNK!**The approaching sounds of horses' hooves landing in puddles and cartwheels bouncing in and out of potholes announced the late, unwelcome arrival of Scotland Yard. Holmes' hand froze on Watson's abdomen and his gaze locked on the other man's. A heated, rueful glance passed between them as they withdrew their hands from one another and stepped back to open a respectable distance between them before they received the Inspector.

The white-hot promise he'd seen in Watson's narrowed blue eyes before they turned away from him, and the final snap he gave Holmes' suspenders before he completely withdrew, however, quite wonderfully robbed the detective of the breath to greet Lestrade.


End file.
